Yeah... All I can say about this is I completely lost all track of thought during this. I had it planned out, then it, well, just wouldn't /flow/. So, I'm sorry for the shortness and the choppiness and the utterly failing to do dual POVs. I was originally going to have this be two chapters but I didn't have the time (and when i had the time, i didn't have the brain power) to get all the little intrecacies that I needed to have figured out for it. I have a clearer picture for the next chapter. Hopefully that's not going to be crap, too.
Complex
4.Marching Orders
Virgo
1. An entity made up of three or more interrelated components.
2. A group of individual structures known or believed to be
anatomically, embryologically, or physiologically related.
3. A group of related, often repressed memories, thoughts, and
impulses that compel characteristic or habitual patterns of feelings,
thought, and behavior.
Purple was led down the hall to one of the briefing rooms. Tallest Flitch sat at the desk and motioned for Purple to take a seat across from him.
"You must be disappointed," the Tallest said lightly, "that you didn't graduate at the top of the class." He picked up a data pad that clicked under his fingers. "You two were very, very close the entire time. Really the only reason Red beat you was because you skipped more years than him so you have less experience."
Purple opened his mouth but Flitch just gave him a flat look. "Not the best reason, I know, but the council refused to have two top graduates." He sighed. "I had hoped to change their minds but…"
Uncertain what to say, Purple closed his mouth.
"Here." Tallest Flitch slid a data pad across the desk. "This is where you'll be sent to: Alpha Quadrant, Dijus System. The second planet is called Atria. It's predominantly woodlands and rainforests. The dominant species are the Monmen. They dwell almost exclusively in the treetops where they've built a rather sophisticated city network."
Skimming through the information Purple frowned. "They don't seem too impressive. Powerful bodies but their brain mass is barely average."
"No, their not considered a highly intelligent bunch but their instincts aren't to be taken lightly. It almost borders on 'sixth sense'." Tallest Flitch wove his fingers together. "One of our Invaders was captured on that planet- a very competent and somewhat tall fellow. Blending in was his specialty but the Monmen still managed to sniff him out. We had to publicly apologize and explain that it was just a field exercise. The reason we're sending you there is because they're more on guard than ever and we've found that there's good mineral and other natural resources we need on that planet. Do you think you're up for this, Invader?"
Red looked at the data pad again. "Infiltrate Atria and exploit the Monmen's weakness?" He grinned broadly. "It'll be my pleasure, my Tallest."
Red was not only one of the last to get his assignment but also one of the last to leave the monitor ship, though this was mainly for the fact that part of his equipment issue changed after he received his orders. It took him almost an hour trying to return his issued S.I.R. unit.
"Look," he told the little drone, "the planet I'm assigned to doesn't have this sort of technology and the dominant species doesn't come in such a small size. I can't take it with me due to possible mission compromise." He didn't know why it was so hard to comprehend, but he was about ready to tear his antennae out in frustration.
During his trip to Atria, Red reviewed his information. The Monmen were a tree dwelling species with sinewy bodies and long, bulging arms that steepled into claws. Despite their advanced culture, they had sloping brows and small brains. But what they lacked in intelligence they made up with instinct and intuition- that ability to tell that something wasn't right or something was about to happen was wide spread in the few space faring species of that area.
With no natural enemies on the planet, they were herbivorous by nature. Though they were peaceful, their strengths lay in their powerful and quick bodies and impressive hearing. Their only weakness was their poor eyesight.
Red's first thought was to just burn the planet to the ground, but moisture hung in the air like a blanket. Only outright razing would do anything to the perpetual misting but their armies were spread out on all fronts. Alpha Quadrant was almost fully occupied and thus had the least amount of occupational force.
Musing over his next step, Red sent a message back to the main force's body. "This is Invader Red reporting from Dijus-2. I am now beginning orbital surveillance. I will report in at regular intervals or at any status change. Invader Red out."
He leaned back in his cruiser (Ciel-class, more spacious and better suited for long periods in space and long-ranged surveillance than the Voot-class) and programmed the computers for information retrieval. And now to watch and wait.
Purple, however, took an entirely different approach. He landed on the planet a good hundred clicks away from the Monmen's major treetop city. He covered the ground quickly with his spider legs, a bag hooked to his waist with small, burrowing surveillance gear. Despite the humidity, Purple felt no discomfort having swindled his way into possessing a protective suit that could guard against both the vacuum of space and intense underwater pressure.
During their time in training, none of the Irkens saw very many trees and those they did were just pitiful mockeries in comparison to what Purple was surrounded by on this planet. The trees were almost twice width of his cruiser at the base and all rose over 100 feet high.
Nearing the city, Purple slowed his approach and crouched lower to the ground. Though it was highly doubtful he would be spotted from the city, he didn't want to risk being seen by some wayward Monmen exploring the ground.
The center of the city sprawled out from a central tree so large it took Purple nearly five minutes to walk around it and branched up and out, canopying the sky with massive branches and thick leaves. Folding himself among the roots, Purple programmed a small electronic drill. After he let it drill into the tree he'd be able to control it from his ship, letting it travel high into the city, able to decipher vibrations through the bark.
He set up eight drills all together in different sectors of the city and, for good measure, laced the ground level with several motion sensors. Anything that passed within a ten meter radius would be recorded until it left the sensor's range.
He, too, had briefly toyed with the idea of setting fire to the planet but decided that plan lacked a certain grace. Anyone could set fire to a planet full of trees. He wanted his first assignment to be memorable. He wanted to make sure everyone knew his name.
He would, under no condition, fail his Tallest.
While Purple spent the next several months deciphering the Monmen's rudimentary language, differentiate between levels of speech and mapped out migrations of ground species, Red had a vague bird's eye view of the whole city. Though, from the distance, he lost a vast amount of detail, he could trace out daily movements and had created a social breakdown of both the city and social customs.
Late into his monitoring he suddenly realized something odd. Focusing intently on the information before him, Red made a decision. Shifting his cruiser out of orbit, Red headed toward the planet's surface.
It took much longer for Purple to realize what Red had. His own realization came when a group of young Monmen (adolescents judging from their size) were scavenging for medical herbs that didn't grow in the trees. They were cornered by a pack of wolf-like creatures. Their jaws were long and huge with large horns jutting out for a full charged goring.
Reviewing the video feed from the event, Purple realized that the Monmen had canine teeth of their own though a majority of them were square and flat. Curious at this, Purple went around to where the Monmen came down to bury their dead.
The dead Monmen were wrapped in large, smelly leaves that preserved the bodies and kept scavengers from disturbing their rest. Dissecting the freshest body he could find, Purple found that their jaws were, indeed, developed for both herbivorous and carnivorous habits. The muscles in their neck and jaw were so powerful it could snap through bone.
But what Purple couldn't understand was if they were so capable of biting through their opponents, why did the Monmen make it a point not to get their powerful jaws anywhere near the wolf things?
For half a week Purple thought and planned. At the end of that time, the spot Purple's ship had stayed for a number of months bore only a wide hole as the only sign of his presence.
Though Red and Purple had both figured the only way to progress in their mission was to head to the tree tops beyond the city's outskirts, they wound up on different sides.
The city itself spanned several dozen miles with lacing bridges and vast housing networks that wove between branches. Purple had taken his position in what Red had labeled the working class. There all the craft work was done- furniture, bridges, tools and small personal items were made in that area. Red himself set up his base just outside of the area he had originally deemed as the farming area. He would later rename it as the religious sector.
Red found, watching the daily proceedings from a quarter mile away, that this was not only the area in which the Monmen would eat, there was a set way in HOW they could eat. There were four meals a day and each was at a set time. Before they could eat, they would perform a ceremony in which they bowed before their food and raised their heads and hands to the sky, cooing in some language he couldn't understand.
And, something else he noticed upon further observation, there was actually a ceremony on how they PREPARED the meals, also. From how they cut and gathered the plants from the trees and ground to how they cooked it. There were different meals prepared on different days or different cycles of the moon or when there was some sort of holiday or other celebration.
Red often times sat in his cruiser in utter confusion. Irkens just ate what they wanted when they could. Eating was, really, something that got in the way of conquering people. He'd never known anyone who took eating so seriously.
A thought suddenly hit him.
HOW seriously, he wondered…
"This is Invader Purple reporting in. I've discovered a strange ritual- subtle, almost religious in nature –in the Monmen society. I'm sending small scouting units to other major Monmen communities to see if this is just an isolated tradition. If not, then I believe we can have this planet set for conquest within a year."
Tallest Flitch's long fingers beat out a rapid tattoo against the arm of his chair. Invading planets was generally a long process, a good number taking up to five years. He shouldn't be getting impatient. Not when he sent his two top Invaders out a little over a year ago. Except he sent them to the same damn planet and, according to the reports, they hadn't even become aware of each other yet.
He rolled his eyes. For such clever Irks, they were really blind.
Maybe it's too much to be expected, though. If they eventually encounter each other he hoped they'd learn something from their earlier rivalry.
The Tallest looked at the data pad in his other hand, a report gathered from all his closest advisors and he didn't much like the situation.
If the two didn't end up working together, Tallest Flitch was going to be out a LOT of monies.
"This is Invader Red reporting in. After two years of observation, planning and setting up, I am now ready to initiate the final stage of my mission. Once the Monmen have been properly placated, I will give the signal to invade."
"You," Purple told himself proudly, "are a genius. You should get a medal for this."
This creation of genius was actually a plan a year and a half in the making. He had captured and experimented on a good number of the flora and fauna, conditioning the animals to eat the ground based plants the Monmen would gather and even going so far as to call in some off world insects to infect and wither tree branches of the Monmen's fruit trees.
An army, after all, moves on its stomach. Cripple their food supply and taking over would be an easy walk in the park.
But, pressing his mouth in a thin line, Purple knew with the amount of plants in the area, this process on its own would take far too long. The Monmen had taken cooking to a level beyond art, beyond a way of life. They could make something edible- and rather tempting in his opinion –out of almost of anything. What he needed was a secondary phase. Something to keep them from eating as well as before.
His answer would inevitably trigger his ship's alert system.
Antennae pricking at the beeping, Purple brought the alert up on screen and was completely blindsided by what he saw.
"RED?" He gaped. "HERE?"
Not caring about saving face, Purple stormed out of his ship and met Red halfway there. If there was one thing he could take pleasure from the situation from was the fact that Red was just as equally flabbergasted at his presence.
"What are YOU doing here?" They accused.
"Me?" Purple gritted out. "Tallest Flitch gave me this assignment personally!"
Red narrowed his eyes. "No, he gave it to ME."
"I got here first!"
"Yeah right!"
"You wanna finish it now?" Purple hissed, spider legs extracting from his Pak.
"Bring it on, punk!" Red shot back. "We'll finish this once and for all!"
They growled at each other, the laser tips on their spider legs glowing dangerously. They stared each other down, snarls set.
As the sun faded into the clouds overhead for the forth time since their face off, Red's sneer turned into a frown. "You know what," he said flatly, "neither of us are going to back down and both of us know that already."
Purple seemed to deflate. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He sighed, legs retracting as he crossed his arms. "So what do you want?"
"I noticed some odd things happening around the place." Red replied. "I picked up a signal a while ago but I thought it was just an electrical discharge from the thunderstorm at the time. When I found out the plants were being eaten or ruined, I decided to take a closer look and found a Lieten bug." Red tapped a finger against his arm. "And, because they're not indigenous to this world and the only place they are is under Irken control, I looked up where the signal came from and followed it here."
"Well," Purple's smile was all teeth, "you found me. So what're you going to do?"
Red narrowed his eyes. "This is my assignment. I'm not letting you take it away from me."
" 'Your' assignment?" He snorted. "I seem to be further along than you. What were you planning on doing?"
"My plan is to make meat available as an alternative food supply. It's against their religion to eat meat so they either break coda or they starve to death."
"That-," Purpled paused, a blank look on his face, "that's actually a pretty cool idea."
Stunned, Red blinked and then looked down, somewhat sheepish. "Yeah, well… I just haven't been able to figure out how to force them to choose."
"Hey, I actually have an idea. What if, asides from forcing them to eat meat, we offer them an alternative food solution on top of that a couple weeks after no food? Plants and fruits, but have the meals laced with meat. That way when those that attempt to claim they kept their religion but when the others they prosecute for failing their 'faith' learn about it, it'll cause a riot."
The other Irken returned the grin with equal parts malice and bloodthirsty anticipation. "You know, maybe we should start talking partnership."
Tallest Flitch squirmed in his seat, cackling as his closest advisors read the report with the same jaw-dropped expression.
"Invader Red reporting in. Invader Purple and I have decided to collaborate our efforts in order to suppress this planet at a faster rate. We have just begun the final phase of our plan and will contact the fleet once the planet is properly pacified. Invader Red signing out."
The Tallest had to stuff his hands in his mouth to keep from giggling too loudly as his advisors grumbled, digging out monies to send to their leader. One of them muttered something about him being known as the Almighty Tallest that bankrupt the empire.
That was fine with him though. So long as he was the one getting the monies.
"Red, Purple," he toasted the distant planet on screen, "you boys do me proud."